


Love Me Tomorrow

by Aromarrym



Series: Beautiful Soul [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Fluff, Love Me Tomorrow, M/M, Mortal!Roxas, Partly Amnesiac AU, Pathetic fallacy, Seasonal Spirits and Guardians, Slice of Life, SoRoku Day 2018, Songfic, Soroku, Spirit!Sora, nature spirits, prose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 17:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aromarrym/pseuds/Aromarrym
Summary: "How far would you go to make the one you love remember?"Ten years of patience is too long a time for Sora. He fears Roxas has forgotten him, and when he returns to their world, Sora isn't the person he used to be. What's wrong with him? Was giving up his very nature for the blonde so meaningless? Before the last snowflake falls, Roxas needs to love him again. [sequel to The Sky On The Sand]





	Love Me Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello! How are you all? Another year, another Soroku Day chaptered fic as per annual tradition~ I never intended to make a sequel for this universe, but now that the idea's been planted in my head I had to go write it!
> 
> To honour _The Sky on the Sand's_ style, I'm using song lyrics from A Rocket To The Moon's _While The World Let Go_. I'll keep the plot device a secret for now ;) Here we go!

In the land of the spirits, it is neither hot nor cold. Weather is a phenomenon reserved for the mortal world; a privilege bestowed onto those with ephemeral lives. Temperamental storms, rain and illusionary mists — these are the works of the spirit of the sky, an enviable ability indeed. His power is eternally linked with Earth, an inescapable fate which he must uphold forevermore.

Time, however, is the master all guardians must live by. They rely on the seasons, and with them, there are rules and duties to fulfill. Under the guidance of Father Nature, spirits ensure the wellbeing of the mortal world: that flowers grow when they're supposed to, that the tide comes and goes when it must and the ground shatters and shakes every few decades to cleanse the lands and form new mountains.

It's spring again. The Tree of Khronos on the eastern hill is dressed in white; its coarse, russet branches adorned by clusters of buds and healthy leaves. He'd received it from the First Father many a millenia ago, the once frail, magicborne sapling now towering mightily over a quarter of his dominion. The Tree is strikingly barren during winter and a deep cerise when autumn comes, but any day now, when the sun completes a full revolution and settles over it for twenty-four hours, it will transform into a luscious green and mark his chance to leave home.

He exhales, and a gust of wind disturbs the tranquility around him. The sky spirit's dominion is a meadow of beautiful flowers — a commendable replica from the mortal world. It can be a valley— the smooth land below him travelling to meet the uneven terrain of the hills, or a beach, if he'd care to go there. To the west is a large body of water, a clear, open lake with a narrow riverpath towards the sea.

In spring, he lingers above the meadow. Long blades of grass still at the wind's absence, viridescent and dewy under his touch. The intermingling scent of yellow daylilies, baby pink lupines and perennial asters permeates the air, but the nostalgia it carries can never soothe his soul. He turns his back to the infallibly blue sky, face against his personal cloud, and closes his eyes.

**~o~**

Spirits do not sleep.

The world is as bright and blinding as it always is when Sora peeks a blue eye open, lazily surveying his surroundings. The sun has relocated itself like he wished it so, east to west, another day. It's morning. He sits up, his misty robes righting itself where the creases had formed. If he starts his tasks early, then he has more time to himself and whatever activity he finds himself doing. It's an endless cycle of waiting and working, now and later, up until the early signs of summer.

He presses an ethereal foot on the grass, grinning when he can feel the gritty texture of the soil underneath. Though he belongs away from the lands, days spent listlessly floating around or on the personal cloud which follows him everywhere, Sora likes to practice walking. He walks across his meadow and aims for the northern hills, counting the steps he takes every minute.  _Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight._  The cloud follows him even when he starts sprinting, robes fluttering behind him, the mirth in his features as real as it can get.

Like a caged prisoner treading on open ground for the first time in decades, he leaps and turns, whole body following when he runs the opposite direction. Sora tramples on half-bloomed flowers and weeds alike, their stalks glittering and reshaping when the magic of the land restores them. A glance forward and he realizes he's heading towards The Tree of Khronos, a shaded uphill climb. He beams. Channeling his inner power from the wisps of his hands to the glows of his feet, he projects himself upward with lightning speed. Sora kicks at the air twice and finds himself flipping in midair before soaring forward, nimble enough to snatch a blushing bloom from the Tree.

"Gotcha," he mutters to himself, now hovering over its highest bough. He inspects the small flower and mentally notes the little pinpricks of green and yellow in its petals, colours desaturating before the bloom fades to white dust. Middle of spring, then. He summons his cloud with a wave of his hand; its soft, wispy state cushioning his steady descent. That's enough playing for now.

Sora rides the cloud back to the meadow, legs dangling over the edge while he sits. His loose, brown hair flutters against his face and he blinks, tucking it behind an ear. He needs to make a momentary stop over the lake. Once he's close, Sora hops off and makes his way there himself, slowly tiptoeing downwards. Within a small area of the lake, he commands the water to rise and swirl before him, eventually summoning a perfect sphere of freshwater the size of his hand. Sora carries it with him and drinks from it, saving the excess for his chore.

He ascends towards the heavens. From this height, Sora can see a faint outline of The Tree of Cosmos at the centre of Father Nature's dominion; a thick forest teeming with earth magic and faux representations of fauna. He casts his eyes away from it. Sora sprinkles the water across the sky and chants, the transparent outlines of another cloud forming with his ministrations. This one is faint — long tendrils of white stemming from each other, the ends aerated.

"Mirror to the mortal world, open," he tells it, and the cloud obeys. The world around him shifts and he suddenly finds himself hovering over the spitting image of a busy city. There are crowds meandering to and fro in opposite sides of the street, cars on standby as they wait for the pedestrians to cross. There's a new overpass being constructed at one of the intersections, the road marked in plastic orange dividers and directive neon signs. He's been to this city before, once upon a time. Feeling forgiving, Sora clears the cumulus clouds bunching up at his level, the ends of his lips rising. No use bringing rain when the construction workers have been working so hard on their project.

He swishes the image away. The next scene is over a bridge he'd once loved and hoped to end up near again in his future visits. Sora was there when it was first made five hundred years ago, carved in yellowish limestone and supported by twin towers on either side of it. He knew the man who had built it; an intelligent but lanky fellow who'd been made to plan his own funeral if he did not deliver. Sora had kept him company then, sitting on the rocky mountain edge overlooking the river below while the man slaved over it during its final year.

The memory wrenches at the core of his being and he falters, shoulders visibly sagging. He's no stranger to the feeling of restlessness. Sora watches the origin of his namesake darken, letting his emotions do all the work as the first bouts of rain paint the olden town. He gives some and takes some, Sora knows. Timezone by timezone, place to place, everyday he bears forth a weather to suit the world: sunshine when he's happy, thunderstorms when he's agitated or snowfall when he's feeling icy. The next few randomized places suffer the same fate until he remembers something particularly pleasing.

**~o~**

When Sora's finished, he lets himself fall back on his personal cloud, azure eyes fluttering shut. God, he's exhausted. He'll do the second half of the world when the sun peaks over at the south later on. In the meantime, Sora flips himself over until he's lying on his stomach, pasty left leg upright and his chin resting on one of his hands. His sleeves are much too long for his form, but he likes it that way.

"Show me Roxas," he mumbles to the open portal. From the first day they'd met all those years ago, and the end of the summer season their love was born from— those words have never staled on the tip of his tongue. He keeps the promise he'd made a full decade ago— that he'd look after him wherever he goes from above. It's night-time at the blonde's side of the world. A longing smile graces his features when Sora drifts towards the image of him, dozing off with his left side against the bed. The beige-patterned comforter he has on is near falling off.

Sora's loved one is a teen no more. The long blonde hair he used to keep so adamantly is trimmed short, natural curls just shy away from his eyes. He's also lost the last of his childish features, generously filling out his once-bony frame over the years. Sora knows he shaves sometimes, so the spirit can only assume there are hints of stubble dotting the side of his pale face. Roxas still has freckles. He would reach out and count them one by one, tracing over them lovingly like the many constellations in the mortal night sky, but if he attempts to linger any further, then the image of Roxas will be disrupted and diffuse into the wisps of clouds it once was.

He doesn't have enough power to make his fantasies tangible, for only the all-powerful Great Riku holds and guards the sole portal to the mortal world. Sora can only pine for his beloved from the heavens, endlessly counting the days until he can return to Earth to meet him again. He'd tried to convince Father Nature last year, and the year after, and even the year after that. Surely the white-haired man cannot hold anything against him now, what with him obediently serving his purpose as the spirit of the sky.

...Ten whole years.

Sora lifts a lone finger to his lips and blows on it. This lets him conjure up a light breeze at Roxas' current residence, allowing the cold to seep through the small crack of the blonde man's window. Roxas feels this, and in his sleepy state, he searches for the soft comforter by his feet and tugs it around himself. The mortal groans once before slipping back into a sound slumber. It's the least Sora can do.

_Surely this year, he'll let me..._

* * *

_I said don't go._

* * *

Father Nature's dominion is as otherwordly as it gets. At first glance, it is a forest, thickets of trees rivalling each other's height as they climb up, _up_ , desperate for sunlight. Multitudinous branches sport viridian leaves of many sizes, larger and more spread out at the bottom and heavily clustered near the top. There are vines too, some woven around the thickest, driest trunks and hanging low — forming nature's hammock. The Holy Tree of Cosmos transcends the rest of the trees. Like loyal knights, they surround the mighty king standing at the center of it all, only parting when they've been told to do so.

All year round, it is a dangerous area of greenery and thriving life. When Khronos is impoverished and lifeless, Cosmos survives, hardening itself with shard-like leaves and sparkling stalagtites. Today, it is a vessel for the guardians. Every start of a new season, they gather and discuss their plans for maintaining Earth, and if need be, who can be sent down to blend in with the mortals.

Had Sora finished his duties that day feeling incredibly ambitious, he would have hiked the entire distance from his beloved meadow. Alas, he prefers not to waste his precious seconds. He clutches at the locket he keeps close to his heart, letting the memories it carries empower him as he rides his cloud towards Cosmos. From the northwest, he sees the spirit of the sea approaching within an aquatic bubble, arranging her waterborne red hair. The wave spirit travels in a similar fashion, her tidal whirlpool at the waist down disintegrating once she lands before a concealed crevice on the giant Tree.

"Naminé," Sora regards her from afar, offering her a smile. With their dominions so close to each other, the two spirits are amicable friends. Sora hops off and guides himself down with featherlight footsteps.

"Hello Sora." she greets warmly. "It's finally summer again. How are you holding up?"

She of all the guardians know how incredibly important this gathering is for him. "If I have to get down on my knees and beg for his blessing again, I will. Riku can be such a pain." He says this through his teeth, and a fist-sized, dark cloud forms above him. He whooshes it away.

"He's difficult to negotiate with because you are his favourite," she says. "He can't still be mad at you for your last Earthly visit."

"No, he can't. I've already made up for it plenty." Sora acquiesces. Behind them, the sea spirit announces her arrival, thin veil of water unravelling itself on her signal. The rest of it seeps into the forest floor within seconds, leaving no trace of its existence on her silky robes and shell-braided red locks.

"Hey you two. Is Dame Aqua already in by any chance?" she gestures to the crevice. It's the real entrance to Father Nature's domain; a sacred white wonderland governed by a throne of sturdy branches and thorns.

"We're just about to enter, Kairi." Sora tells her. "Let's all go in together."

Amidst the growing crowd are several of their fellow guardians of nature, their hidden abilities and representations all distinct from one another. The vast, non-existent ceiling above is furbished by the Strings of Fate: fine woven threads of snow eternally linking and snapping into place. Father Nature is uncharacteristically slouching at his throne. He seems fatigued, deft fingers spinning and tugging at the lines under his command.

Navigating the halls as wide as Cosmos' circumference takes no effort. There's still much of the glassy floor gleaming proudly under spirit world's sun, and some of the spirits like Sora are airborne. Naminé follows him like a shadow as he makes his way to the front where they belong. They manage to exchange greetings with the sand guardian Xaldin, a fellow summer-reliant being.

"Oh, there she is," Kairi lights up, referring to the mystical figure cloaked in violet. "I'll see you two at the front? Goodluck today, Sora."

Sora doesn't plan to bring up his proposal with Father Nature until after their meeting is over. He has more tact than many believe— he refuses to inconvenience the others whose reasons for visiting the mortal world hold more worth. Naminé takes his hand in her icy cold one and squeezes, giving him strength.

**~o~**

"No. I've already made up my mind. You are to stay here this summer," the Great Riku asserts firmly, "and serve your purpose, Sora."

Of course.

With Riku, it's always been about  _order_ , about doing his  _job_  till the end of time, about keeping the mortal world in  _balance_. Sometimes spirits make mistakes, and they make up for it in the long run. Sora has kept his emotions in check. Sure, he almost endangered the town he was visiting ten years ago, but he's paid the price in full. Controlled and appropriate weather for the next three years, and no visiting Earth. He's paid the price in full  _three_  times over.

"Not even going to explain why I can't this time?" Sora challenges. The nimbus cloud has returned, and no amount of whooshing it away will hide his irritation.

Riku pulls at the threads of Fate from his throne, straightening and weaving them expertly. He turns to the sky spirit with a sigh on his lips. "If you expected me to say no, why do you keep on asking... The answer is always going to be the same."

"And why is it?" roars Sora, his azure eyes darkening. "You're not telling me why I can't go, why you insist I do the job that I already do every single day. I'm not asking for a lot, Riku. I just want to visit, and see  _him_ , and maybe travel beyond the boundaries or stay the night more often— I'll come back everyday to regain my form, and I won't push myself. I know I'm not human, I know the risks and the limits of my abilities— so  _please_."

He stayed the night on Earth once, and he'd flickered in and out of existence even when he returned to the spirit world. It was a first out of hundreds of times, and it terrified his closest friends. It may not have mattered that his visiting days were over, but like all guardians, he is  **soulbound**  to the heavens. Their prolonged absence can cause a major rip in the face of nature.

"Don't you think it's time you moved on?" Riku dares to ask. He meets Sora's glare with a blasé look of his own, unrelenting.

"You think I'm being unreasonable," the sky spirit calmly provides for him. "You told me ten years ago that maybe you'd give him a chance. Maybe he's good for me, that you liked him. What's changed, Riku?"

"The world changes around us, and so we must change for it." he answers immediately. He abandons his throne for a while when he hovers towards Sora, godly gold robes embracing his ethereal figure. Father Nature is as beautiful as the many sceneries of the mortal world: snow white tresses rivalling the best waterfalls and oasis-deep turquoise eyes. He crushes the nimbus cloud in his fist, smirking, before laying a gentle hand above Sora's head.

"My heart won't change," Sora argues, letting Riku pat him momentarily before swatting his arm to the side. Authority or not, Father Nature has always been just  _Riku_  to him. "Even if you prohibit me from going this time, I will keep on asking until you let me. That or I will go behind your back and take matters into my own hands."

"You cannot. I never leave my throne. I also know everything, so you cannot outsmart me either, young one."

Sora leaps backwards and into the center of the floor. "I have lived as long as you, oh great,  _beautiful_  Father Nature. I want to see Roxas," he throws a hand up to his chest, grasping at the locket there, "and I am  _going_  to, even if it's just a day.  _Please._  One day, Riku, out of thousands of my years of service. It barely compares."

"Absolutely not."

Sora doesn't want to believe it. "There you go with the no's again. Tell me why! Why won't you let me go?"

"You already know  _why_ —"

"I do not!" he chokes, and suddenly the sun shining over Cosmos shies away from their quarrel. "I don't understand! Is it because Roxas is human, and I'm the ever-so-important spirit of the sky? That's ridiculous! Is it because it won't last? That I'll end up hurting him or myself? He'll die one day, just like all living things. I  _know_  that, and in the end I will be the one who’s going to suffer the most. That's on me. But I don't care, because while he's still alive I want to be  _there_ , and I want to  **love** , I want to offer him the things he deserves." His voice goes quiet, a scarily depressing tone that makes even Riku's every being shudder.

"It's a selfish plea, I know. I'm not the best choice for him; I can't stay by his side forever. But I am tired. I am so tired of carrying on, of merely watching. Of being trapped within a destiny I cannot change. Tell me why I can't go, and I'll let you know whether or not your reason matters."

Riku doesn't back down even when he turns his attention back on the Strings of Fate. "Nature needs you, Sora. You are the spirit of the sky. Wherever people are in the world, you're there too. You aren't like Xaldin, who has little to control and is bound by his desert location in the mortal world. You  _own_  the sky. You are heavenborn, and as such, your responsibility is even greater. You would dare sacrifice the wellbeing of the mortal world, the world your Roxas loves all in pursuit of his affections?"

That's not fair.

Sora would never do anything that would hurt Roxas, and Riku, being the clever spirit he is, knows this.

It's funny, how one's sense of self can be metamorphosed so easily by something as tedious as one mortal love. How quickly the powerful fall for its temptations; how something like time stops and slows for them. Eons, he'd lived. Ten of thousands of years, watching the world evolve and contributing to that change. Curse him, because Sora's humanly emotions are what give him his power. His hurt, His joy, his melancholy and grief— they are what make him more like them than his fellow guardians. Every passing millisecond, every excruciating minute. He'd felt the pain, the confusion, the desire to become what he is not and endured it all.

Riku, it seems, is also tired. There is a slump where his confident stance was centuries ago, his soul bound also to the earth and the season of winter. Since he stepped foot within Cosmos and was crowned the Second Father, he has not ventured away from his own barricades. He would know how Sora feels. Riku once joked about handing over the throne to him, and Sora had laughed, leaving through the portal he himself had never crossed.

"Okay," he says with finality, white brows knitting in pain. "If you're sure you know your duties, I promise to let you visit. But there will be a catch to this."

The illuminating smile on Sora's face dies as quickly as it came. "A-Alright. If you say so." He is a pawn, merely observing when the Great Riku chants a summoning incantation. An ice-sculpted pillar appears before them, and on it sits an asperous wreath of thorns, the roman numeral for "three" carved into it with yggdrassil magic. A blue jewel sits in the middle of it. Sora is about to say he has seen such a treasure before until he realizes that it is a replica of the very crown adorning Father Nature's head.

_That's..._

"I'll make you a deal of a lifetime, Sora, And you better listen, because we may just get what we both want." Riku— no,  _Father Nature_  explains, his authoritative voice echoing within the walls.

"You are to stand your ground this summer while I make my preparations. Come autumn, you are to report back here. I'll give you the entire season and another—  _six whole months_  to explore the mortal world. You do not need to return every night. You are not bound by the very area you land on, and you will go to him, this Roxas. Prove to me that this human is worth it,  _Sora Spiritus Caelum_  the Second. Prove to me that he will love you with all you've got, regardless of your background and nature. If he does, kudos to you. If he doesn't, well, you know the consequences. You will  _never_  go back to Earth, and you will resume your place here as the spirit of the sky and the next Father Nature. Can you really trust he'll pick you?"

An even bigger responsibility, to govern the sky and wear the crown of the entire spirit world. Even the mortal world will rest on his hands. Bless the gods. Sora will  _really_  never be able to return to Earth.

It's a sacrifice upon sacrifice— to go now and return a warrior or to never go at all. If Sora refuses and pleads for a favour in another decade, will Riku let him go then...?

He will not have to return the night. He can travel. He can't be sure he'll be returning with his weather-changing abilities, but he'll be able to take Roxas to places and show him the world he looks after, the world they both  _love_. Six months is longer than the three he usually has, and a lot more than the day he wanted. If he has to return by the end of it all anyway...

Sora lets his bare feet touch the floor, grounded, before dropping down to his knees and hailing the man above him. "I accept your deal. I said I'd do anything.  _Anything_ , if it means seeing him again. Even if I have to return and take your place; if I never go back to Earth and let him find the happiness he deserves. I miss him."

"I know you do, Sor," Riku tells him, and it's  _Riku_ this time, the precious friend he's always known. "Can you wait a little bit more? I cannot promise it'll be a good experience. All-knowing I may be, but I do not tell the future, nor do I hold time. That is up to the First Father to decide."

Waiting? Sora has been doing it all his life. He is patient, serene and kind, and when he loves, he loves with an incomprehensible intensity. The Inner Tree of Cosmos is indubitably brighter with his light, and the sky, his very namesake, is bluer than the beauty in his eyes.

Roxas...

* * *

_I need you here._

* * *

End Part 1


End file.
